“Master Chou”

An eastern sage could not recall

If he was man, mayhap, or butterfly.

I know I am a man. I know because

I’m but a bug.

 

…She is not so much like a butterfly at all:

Butterflies are pretty, with eye-spotted wings.

Her eyes are in her head. Her head is in the heavens.

And her feet – they stalk the clouds.

If I were a butterfly I might dance upon the air –

The ball-room of the billows that the blowing wind arrays –

And dance in happy unison the trail her feet have traced.

Only… If I were a butterfly, I could not have dreamt

That way she smiles at everything.

Though you gave me age on age, like great and turning wheels –

Birth and rebirth, worlds without end –

Still, not all the stars a brain could have invented

That ruddy halo of her hair.

And by this too I know she is no dream:

That though I move through fretful dreams and dark

And wander in the daylight sun a somniac

She called my name under a cloudy sky

Just as the first rain fell; and I could tell

The rays of dawn and birdsong in her stare.